What if you spent every day looking for One Beautiful Thing?

Long May We Wave

Happy Flag Day. Here is something I found particularly moving. It’s Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Flag Day address from 1942, and his words seem especially resonant today. In it, he talks about us finding a common faith, but I don’t think he’s referring to a religion. I think he means faith in humankind and freedom and faith in our planet. And we could all use some of that these days.

The full text is below the video, but I enjoyed hearing it in his own voice. Perhaps you will, too.

The Spirit of man has awakened
The Soul of man has gone forth

Grant us the wisdom and the vision
to comprehend the greatness of man’s Spirit
that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal
beyond his own brief span

We are all of us children of Earth
Grant us that simple knowledge

If our brothers are oppressed,
then we are oppressed

If they hunger, we hunger

If their freedom is taken away,
our freedom is not secure

Grant us a common faith,
that man shall know bread and peace
That he shall know justice and righteousness,
Freedom and security, an equal opportunity,
and an equal chance to do his best,
not only in our own lands, but throughout the world.

And in that faith, let us march, march toward the clean world,
our hands can make. Amen

I am going to have to confess that this made me well up. At a time when there is so much division in the country and in the world, so much conflict, so much focus on what separates rather than unifies, a message of common bonds and purpose, of universal values, of the humanity that links us all feels especially potent. We need more of this and less of what passes for political rhetoric today – and I mean in the UK as well as the US.